After a great deal of waiting I have finally got hold of the phone some of us have been waiting for Nokia to make for the last couple of years, the Lumia 1020, so I thought I'd write up a quick review on it.
For the most part I'm comparing this to my old N8.
This may seem a bit of an odd comparison (why not any of the newer Apple, Samsung, HTC or Sony phones for example?) but there are two simple reasons for this:
1) I suspect a reasonable number of people who bought the N8 for its camera have been hanging on for the 1020 for the same reason.
2) I do not own any of the other above-mentioned smart phones (though I did manage a couple of comparisons with an iPhone5 on the same night).
Hardware:
Physically the 1020 is a much bigger unit that the old N8 (on a par with a Galaxy S3), though it's actually slightly shallower at the deepest point. It still slides into your pocket easily enough but, with my average-bloke-sized hands it's really not as easy to use one-handed as the N8. The lens bulge seems to sit in a a bit of a funny place when you're holding it as well. From a design perspective I really don't like how they've chosen to house the additional gubbins; there are a number of alternative methods that would have produced both an easier-to-hold design as well as one that looked a bit sleeker.
A different design approach might also have allowed them space to fit in a couple of the nice hardware touches from the old N8, e.g. an expandable memory slot and the HDMI output.
Overall, of course, the phone hardware is much better - as you'd expect from a device several generations newer - the screen is a delight, both from a display and a touch perspective. Though it can register a false touch if you hover your finger too close. It being a dual-core processor (and newer software) everything runs much faster, with the possible exception of the camera start-up, it's a world apart in terms of regular use.
Software:
This is my first windows phone (I shouldn't think there are many people who are on their second) and I have to say that overall I've found it very easy to use and I'm more than happy with the operating system. There's a couple of things that took me a couple of attempts to find, and I miss the slide down access to wifi / data / silent but aside from that it's been very simple to figure out. The only things I had to look up were how to add a playing song to an already extant playlist* and how to close down apps when they're running in the background (a two-touch process rather than the old one-touch one).
On the app front, anyone coming from an android or iphone will find nothing like the same range and number of apps (it's much more like the symbian store) but so far the only thing I'd like to have but haven't got is a Strava app, but that wasn't available on symbian either so...
Anyway, the thing that most people wanting a 1020 will want to know about is:
The Camera:
It's good. Better than the N8 by a chunk actually. The reason for that bulky protrusion on the back of the phone is so that it can fit in a whopping great 1/1.5 sensor. Interestingly this is smaller than the old Pureview 808 (which had a 1/1.2) but still about 4 times the size of most other top-end camera phones and also larger than a lot of budget point-and-shoot cameras.
Some reviews will tell you that you can dump your compact camera once you have one of these but that is going to depend on what your compact was, if it was a cheapish one then this is probably true, if you've got something quite nice then you might want to do a bit more research.
I even read one review that claimed you wouldn't need your DSLR anymore - this is what's technically known as "bollocks". It's good, but let's not be ridiculous.
So, some details.
Firstly the phone comes with two camera apps, SmartCam and ProCam, built in. SmartCam takes a sequence of photos and lets you do funky things like removing background objects, correcting blinking faces, picking the best shot of a sequence etc. All very nice - and probably good if you have kids or do lots of other people photography - but I've never used it.
ProCam is a nice little app that gives you a bit more manual control of your photos. A series of simple swipe arcs allow you to make basic adjustments to white balance, focus (as well as tap focus), ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Whilst these are fairly basic they're actually very useful. Being able to ramp up the ISO at a gig for example (no flash required, especially as there's a mechanical stabiliser on the camera too) or being able to crank up the shutter speed for action shots.
Again, it's nothing like a proper set of manual controls on an SLR but it does allow you be much more creative than the competition.
Before I link you to some sample shots, a quick word on the output files. The 1020 saves two files for each shot, an unprocessed 41mp file and an over-sampled 5mp file for easier sharing etc. Weirdly if you look at the 41mp file it can look kind of blurry and out of focus. I don't know why this should be but frankly I've been sufficiently happy with the 5mp shots that I've never felt the need to export the 41mp version and try and play around with it. Anyway, for the comparison shots below, it's a 12MP N8 shot vs a 5MP 1020 shot as I figure that's what most people will use most of the time. (These shots have been uploaded to picasa, I'm not sure what compression they might use so this could be a bit of a dodgy comparison but I'm afraid I don't have any personal web-hosting to put the uncompressed files on).
Sunny(ish) day, outside, detail and inside shots:
N8 Outside, N8 detail, N8 inside
1020 Outside, 1020 detail, 1020 inside
Very low light (Dan Webster gig) shots:
N8 Stage, 1020 Stage.
A few shots to show different ISO effects in low light:
ISO400, ISO1600, ISO4000
A couple of other gig shots to show the zoom effect (again, very low light):
Low Zoom, High Zoom
The video is pretty handy too. Not having any other kind of camcorder I don't have anything to compare this to but here's a couple of clips you can make your own mind up about:
Low Light, Daylight and a Low light recording from the N8
And finally a couple of shots to show that with any camera, when the light is right, you just have to point it in the right direction:
Brough Castle 1, Brough Castle 2
So that's it for now, any questions or follow-ups, please shout.
* The reason I couldn't figure out how to do this was simply because you can't, well, not without plugging the phone into a PC and doing a drag and drop. This isn't just on the music player that comes supplied, but on any of the independent apps either - I find that to be a significant, and odd, omission.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Monday, 23 December 2013
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Wheelsmith 50mm Carbon Clinchers - Review
This site has been very music focused over the last few months so it's probably time to address the balance with a bit about cycling. It would be cheap of me to make reference to my recent win in the tourdepance vuelta so instead I shall give you a quick review of a new set of wheels that have recently come into my possession.
[EDIT] N.B. This is just a first ride review, I'll be posting an update when I've got some proper miles on them and can talk about how they hold up.
These are they:
They're a set of 50mm Gigantex carbon clinchers in the new 24mm width, built onto wheelsmith's own hubs with Sapim CX ray spokes. You can find them in the price list at £740 inc shipping.
I went with clinchers because even the idea of the hassle of a tub puncture puts me off them. Carbon because I wanted something lighter than my current wheels, and deep section because they look nice and if there is an aero advantage to be had, I want it.
So in chronological order: firstly I cannot recommend highly enough the service from wheelsmith. I ordered them on the friday, they were built up that afternoon and arrived on monday afternoon. All the while Derek was also available to answer my dumb questions via e-mail after we'd had an initial chat on the phone.
Almost needless to say they're as true as the scales of justice both horizontally and rotationally.
Secondly then, some numbers. weight excl skewers but inc rim tape = Front 687g, Rear 828g, total of 1515g. Not too shabby at all for a pair of deep rim clinchers.
Wheelsmith supply them with some nice light titanium skewers that weigh 44g the pair and they also include a set of carbon specific brake blocks. More on braking later.
I stuck a new pair of 25mm Michelin Pro 4 Service Courses on and with skewers, tyres and tubes the total weight came to 2205g for the pair. They're replacing a set of Planet-X model Bs with Schwalbe Luganos that weighed in at 2665g so I've saved nearly half a kilo but it's a fine example of the law of diminishing returns.
On the bike they look like this:
After much pressure (mainly from certain people who didn't do quite so well in the fantasy Vuelta) I have swapped the valve caps for black ones. Actually it wasn't much pressure at all, the yellow ones look naff.
Which brings us to thirdly, how do they ride?
Well despite my cunning attempt at a scientific control, this is where we leave all the numbers out of it and start getting into stuff like "feel" and "seemed like" and all that. If you're ok with that then read on, if you just want the numbers then that's your lot.
For the first ride I kept the tyres at the same pressure as I'd been running the (23mm) Luganos (but I might well drop this a bit, particularly over the winter) to try and minimise the variables and, with a similar aim in mind, headed out on a route we knew pretty well: fairly flat, 7-8 mph headwind on the way out, following on the way back.
Being a fair bit lighter I did feel the old "spinning up quickly" effect and generally stamping on the pedals resulted in a sprightly leap forward. Averaging about 18 mph or so outwards I cannot honestly say that the wheels felt any different to the model Bs on the flat. In order to provide an effective control I swapped bikes with my mate (also on an ultegra-equipped pro carbon but still with the old model Bs) unfortunately the change in set up made far more difference to the feel than any kind of kit change (though it did highlight my need to clean up my bottom bracket).
I did notice (or so I believe) the reduced weight going up the hills but I also noticed that as we picked up speed (between 30 and 35 on a couple of downhills - told you it was a flat route) that I was going quicker than I had previously. How much of that is psychosomatic I couldn't say. Similarly though, as we pushed on a bit on the way in, the faster we went the more my mate struggled to keep up. Last time we went out the boot was on the other foot.
Initial impressions therefore seem to back up the standard suggestion that the faster you go the more any benefits will take effect. This makes sense given that wind resistance increases as a square of your speed.
One final word on braking, I haven't used these in the wet yet, in the dry the braking has been fine, not noticeably different to my alloy rims. I will update this post when I've got some wet miles in.
Any questions?
[EDIT] N.B. This is just a first ride review, I'll be posting an update when I've got some proper miles on them and can talk about how they hold up.
These are they:
I went with clinchers because even the idea of the hassle of a tub puncture puts me off them. Carbon because I wanted something lighter than my current wheels, and deep section because they look nice and if there is an aero advantage to be had, I want it.
So in chronological order: firstly I cannot recommend highly enough the service from wheelsmith. I ordered them on the friday, they were built up that afternoon and arrived on monday afternoon. All the while Derek was also available to answer my dumb questions via e-mail after we'd had an initial chat on the phone.
Almost needless to say they're as true as the scales of justice both horizontally and rotationally.
Secondly then, some numbers. weight excl skewers but inc rim tape = Front 687g, Rear 828g, total of 1515g. Not too shabby at all for a pair of deep rim clinchers.
Wheelsmith supply them with some nice light titanium skewers that weigh 44g the pair and they also include a set of carbon specific brake blocks. More on braking later.
I stuck a new pair of 25mm Michelin Pro 4 Service Courses on and with skewers, tyres and tubes the total weight came to 2205g for the pair. They're replacing a set of Planet-X model Bs with Schwalbe Luganos that weighed in at 2665g so I've saved nearly half a kilo but it's a fine example of the law of diminishing returns.
On the bike they look like this:
Which brings us to thirdly, how do they ride?
Well despite my cunning attempt at a scientific control, this is where we leave all the numbers out of it and start getting into stuff like "feel" and "seemed like" and all that. If you're ok with that then read on, if you just want the numbers then that's your lot.
For the first ride I kept the tyres at the same pressure as I'd been running the (23mm) Luganos (but I might well drop this a bit, particularly over the winter) to try and minimise the variables and, with a similar aim in mind, headed out on a route we knew pretty well: fairly flat, 7-8 mph headwind on the way out, following on the way back.
Being a fair bit lighter I did feel the old "spinning up quickly" effect and generally stamping on the pedals resulted in a sprightly leap forward. Averaging about 18 mph or so outwards I cannot honestly say that the wheels felt any different to the model Bs on the flat. In order to provide an effective control I swapped bikes with my mate (also on an ultegra-equipped pro carbon but still with the old model Bs) unfortunately the change in set up made far more difference to the feel than any kind of kit change (though it did highlight my need to clean up my bottom bracket).
I did notice (or so I believe) the reduced weight going up the hills but I also noticed that as we picked up speed (between 30 and 35 on a couple of downhills - told you it was a flat route) that I was going quicker than I had previously. How much of that is psychosomatic I couldn't say. Similarly though, as we pushed on a bit on the way in, the faster we went the more my mate struggled to keep up. Last time we went out the boot was on the other foot.
Initial impressions therefore seem to back up the standard suggestion that the faster you go the more any benefits will take effect. This makes sense given that wind resistance increases as a square of your speed.
One final word on braking, I haven't used these in the wet yet, in the dry the braking has been fine, not noticeably different to my alloy rims. I will update this post when I've got some wet miles in.
Any questions?
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